Keeping an Eye Out for It

February 25, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Work tonight cancelled, due to inclement weather.  Outside the kitchen windows, a few flurries fall throughout the day; some snow has fallen around here, but not even enough to have to shovel the driveway.  I decide to take Mway out around 3, after she and Moi have had their nap.  While I’m putting on my walking clothes up in my bedroom, Mway stands in the doorway, staring at me.  Downstairs, as I’m suiting up, Moi tells me to make sure Mway doesn’t “roll in any shit.”  I explain to her that that’s kind of hard to do.  “In that case,” she goes on, “clean her back off with snow if she does.”

State of the Path:   Enough snow has fallen to cover up old foot and paw prints and urine stains from days past, and as I trudge behind Mway on the path, I follow her newly made paw prints, colored gray from an icy sludge just beneath the new snow.  I keep an eye on her as she runs ahead of me, and no sooner are we near the pig pen than I see her flip over on her back.  I yell, “No, Mway.”  She rights herself immediately, gives me a quick look, and continues on; when I reach the spot where she rolled over, I see a big fresh stain of urine right in the middle of the path.  I try to keep my eye on her as she scurries down through the maples and past the wigwams.  Between the sumacs and the maples, I look down to see another big fresh stain of urine across the path – I hadn’t seen Mway rolling her back in this, but it looks to me like the snow is packed down around the stain.  I immediately look up to see Mway, beyond the maples, venturing into bug land – I know she’s looking for the spot of urine and scat she rolled in yesterday, and I yell out, “No!  No!”  Mway looks up at me, paces around a little, and then heads back to the path – which I’m happy to see.  When I finally get down to bug land, I look over to where the urine and scat was yesterday, but see nothing but fresh white snow.

State of the Creek:  Running much the same as yesterday.  Underneath the big oaks, the path is still bare and muddy, and Mway’s new paw prints in the snow beyond for a while turn brown.  A particularly ugly bramble has bent over into the path, which I snap off with my hands.  Some multiflora briars near the feed channel (which I decide to cross over to walk along the skating pond) seem to stick out more in the path today.  I try to break them off, but they are too green to snap, and I only end up twisting them back.  Some snow has fallen around it, but the golf ball is still visible.  Coming back up along bug land, I see yet another fresh stain of urine in the path, which looks like it was rolled on at some time or another.

The Fetch:  Mway is already waiting for me in the clearing when I arrive there.  I stand in the middle of it and toss the stick in various directions.  Mway fetches it about four times. Back in the back yard, as I’m approaching the porch, Mway is standing at the end of it closest to the driveway, the stick lying on the sidewalk in front of her.  When I get on the porch, I tell her “Come on.  Bring your stick here,” but she just looks back at me.  I repeat myself a couple times, and finally she just walks over to the door without bringing her stick.  I let her into the house, then go and fetch the stick myself, placing it on the bench where I know it will be for tomorrow.